Today In American History • November 29, 1887 Granville T. Woods of Cincinnati, Ohio was granted patent number 373,915 for the synchronous multiplex railway telegraph. His invention allowed communication between train stations from moving trains. Woods was born April 23, 1856 in Columbus, Ohio and dedicated his life to developing a variety of improvements related to the railroad industry and controlling the flow of electricity. In 1884, he and his brother formed the Woods Railway Telegraph Company to manufacture and sell telephone and telegraph equipment. In addition to the synchronous multiplex railway telegraph, Woods received approximately 60 other patents and was known to many people of his time as the “Black Thomas Edison.” Despite this, Woods died virtually penniless January 30, 1910. The Granville T. Woods Math and Science Community Academy in Chicago, Illinois is named in his honor. Woods was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006. “Grandville T. Woods: African American Communications and Transportation Pioneer” was published in 2013. • November 29, 1895 William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman, former President of the Republic of Liberia, was born in Harper, Liberia. Tubman initially planned to be a preacher and at 19 was named a Methodist lay pastor. After studying under private tutors, he passed the bar examination and became a lawyer in 1917. In 1923, Tubman was elected to the Senate of Liberia, the youngest senator in history. In 1937, he was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia where he served until 1943. Tubman was elected President of Liberia in 1943 and in 1944 was invited to the White House as the guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first African head of state to be invited. During Tubman’s tenure as president, Liberia experienced a period of prosperity. Between 1944 and 1970, the value of foreign investments increased two hundredfold. From 1950 to 1960, Liberia experienced an average annual growth of 11.5%. Tubman died in office July 23, 1971. The William V. S. Tubman University in Harper is named in his honor. • November 29, 1908 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., pastor and politician, was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Powell earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University in 1930, his Master of Arts degree in religious education from Columbia University in 1932, and his Doctor of Divinity degree from Shaw University in 1935. In 1937, he succeeded his father as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City. As chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Employment in Harlem, he organized mass actions to increase job opportunities for Black workers. He became the first Black person elected to the New York City Council in 1941 and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1944. In 1961, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee where he worked for increases in the minimum wage, education and training for the deaf, and aid to elementary and secondary education. Powell was also instrumental in passing legislation that made lynching a federal crime and desegregating public schools. Powell published his autobiography, “Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.,” in 1971. Powell died April 4, 1972. In 2002, he was the subject of a Showtime Television film titled “Keep the Faith, Baby.” Seventh Avenue north of Central Park in New York City was renamed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and one of the landmarks along the street is the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building. • November 29, 1915 William Thomas “Billy” Strayhorn, hall of fame composer, pianist and arranger, was born in Dayton, Ohio but raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Strayhorn began his musical career studying classical music at the Pittsburgh Music Institute and while still in his teens composed the song “Life Is Lonely” which was later renamed “Lush Life.” In 1938, Strayhorn met Duke Ellington and over the next 25 years they worked together on a number of classic pieces, including “Take the A Train” (1939), “Day Dream” (1946), and “Satin Doll” (1953). Strayhorn died May 31, 1967. Two years later, Ellington recorded a memorial album, “And His Mother Called Him Bill,” consisting entirely of Strayhorn compositions. Strayhorn was posthumously inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1967. The Billy Strayhorn Historical Marker, located at Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh, was dedicated in 1995. His biography, “Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn,” was published in 1996. • November 29, 1919 Pearl Primus, dancer, choreographer and anthropologist, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Primus earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College in 1940. Early in her career, Primus saw the need to promote African dance as an art form worthy of study and performance. In 1943, she presented her first composition, “African Ceremonial.” She was the first dancer to present the African American experience within the framework of social protest in dances such as “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1944), “Strange Fruit” (1945), and “Hard Times Blues” (1945). Primus earned her Master of Arts degree in education in 1959 and her Ph.D. in dance education from New York University in 1978. In 1979, she created “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” about the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama church bombing. From 1984 to 1990, Primus served as professor of ethnic studies at the Five Colleges consortium in Massachusetts and in 1990 she became the first chair of the Five Colleges Dance Consortium. On July 9, 1991, President George H. W. Bush presented her with the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an individual artist by the United States. Primus died October 29, 1994. Her biography, “The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus,” was published in 2011. • November 29, 1935 Henry Plummer Cheatham, congressman and educator, died. Cheatham was born enslaved December 27, 1857 in Henderson, North Carolina. After the Civil War, he was emancipated and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree, with honors, in 1882 and his master’s degree in 1887 from Shaw University. Cheatham became active in politics and encouraged the establishment of institutions for African Americans and the founding of state normal schools for the training of Black teachers. Cheatham was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1888 and re-elected in 1890. While in Congress, he supported federal aid to education and the Federal Elections Bill to provide federal enforcement to safeguard the voting rights of African Americans in the South. After his congressional district was redrawn, Cheatham was defeated for re-election in 1892. From 1897 to 1901, he served as federal recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia. Cheatham was appointed superintendent of the Colored Orphan Asylum in 1907, a position he held until his death. • November 29, 1958 John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, was born in Damongo, Ghana. Mahama earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1981 and a postgraduate diploma in communications studies from the University of Ghana in 1986. He then earned a postgraduate degree in social psychology from the Institute of Social Sciences in the Soviet Union in 1988. Mahama worked at the Embassy of Japan from 1991 to 1995. He was elected to the Parliament of Ghana in 1996 and served there until 2009. From 1998 to 2001, Mahama was Minister of Communications and played a key role in stabilizing Ghana’s telecommunications sector after it was deregulated. He was elected vice president in 2008 and became president July 24, 2012 with the death of President John Atta Mills. Mahama was elected to a full term of office in December, 2012. In 2014, he was elected president of the Economic Community of West African States and chair of the High-Level African Trade Committee of the African Union. Mahama published his memoir, “My First Coup d’Etat and Other True Stories From the Lost Decades of Africa,” in 2012. • November 29, 1964 Donald Frank Cheadle, actor, producer, philanthropist and author, was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Cheadle started his acting career in 1982 and first received widespread recognition for his role in the 1995 film “Devil in a Blue Dress.” He subsequently appeared in “The Rat Pack” (1998), “Traffic” (2000), and “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004). Cheadle was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2005 for his role in “Hotel Rwanda” and he also starred in and was one of the producers of “Crash” which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Picture. Other films in which he has appeared include “Talk to Me” (2007), “Iron Man 2” (2010), and “Iron Man 3” (2013). In 2007, Cheadle and George Clooney were presented the Summit Peace Award for their work to stop the genocide and relieve the suffering of the people of Darfur, Sudan. Cheadle also co-authored two books, “Not On Our Watch: The Mission To End Genocide in Darfur And Beyond” (2007) and “The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes” (2010). Cheadle was named United Nations Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador in 2010. He currently stars in the television situation comedy “House of Lies” and for his performance was nominated for the 2012 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor-Television Series Comedy. • November 29, 1976 Godfrey McArthur Cambridge, comedian and stage and film actor, died. Cambridge was born February 26, 1933 in New York City. He won a four-year scholarship to study medicine but instead decided to become an actor, leaving college in his third year. He made his Broadway debut in “Nature’s Way” (1951) and later appeared in “The Blacks” (1961), a performance that earned him the Off-Broadway Theater (OBIE) Award for Best Supporting or Featured Dramatic Actor. In 1962, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Distinguished Performance Actor for his performance in “Purlie’s Victorious.” He appeared on film in “The President’s Analyst” in 1967 and in “Watermelon Man” and “Cotton Comes to Harlem” in 1970. Cambridge also appeared on a number of television shows as a stand-up comedian. Cambridge died while on the set of the movie “Victory at Entebbe.” • November 29, 1989 Mabel Keaton Stauper, a leader in breaking down racial barriers in nursing, died. Stauper was born February 27, 1890 in Barbados, West Indies. Her family immigrated to Washington, D. C. when she was 13. In 1917, she graduated from Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing and in 1920 helped two physicians establish the first hospital in Harlem to treat Black people with tuberculosis. Stauper became executive secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses in 1934 and over the next 12 years increased membership, established a citizen advisory committee, built coalitions with other medical groups, and dismantled many racial barriers, including integrating the Armed Forces Nurse Corps in 1945 and the American Nurses Association in 1948. Stauper earned many honors, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingarn Medal in 1951. In 1961, she published her autobiography, “No Time for Prejudice: A Story of the Integration of Negroes in Nursing in the United States.” • November 29, 1991 Frank Garvin Yerby, novelist, died. Yerby was born September 5, 1916 in Augusta, Georgia. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Paine College in 1932 and his Master of Arts degree from Fisk University in 1938. Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the antebellum South. In the 1940s, he embarked on a series of best-selling historical novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. In all, he wrote 33 novels and sold more than 55 million books worldwide. In 1946, he became the first African American to publish a best seller with “The Foxes of Harrow” which that same year was purchased by a Hollywood studio, another first for an African American author. Ultimately the book became a 1947 Academy Award nominated film of the same title. In 1958, his “Serpent and the Staff” appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List for Fiction. Other novels by Yerby include “The Devil’s Laughter” (1953), “The Dahomean” (1971), and “McKenzie’s Hundred” (1985). Yerby left the United States for Spain in 1955 in protest against racial discrimination. • November 29, 1997 Coleman Alexander Young, the first African American Mayor of Detroit, Michigan, died. Young was born May 24, 1918 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama but raised in Detroit. During World War II, he served in the 477th Medium-Bomber Group, Tuskegee Airmen, as a bombardier and navigator and played a role in the Freeman Field Mutiny in which African American officers were arrested for resisting segregation at a base in 1945. Young was elected to the Michigan State Senate in 1964 and became the first African American member of the Democratic National Committee in 1968. In 1973, Young was elected Mayor of Detroit with one of his top priorities to more fully integrate the police force, which was approximately 19% African American at the time of his election and over 60% at the end of his tenure. Over his 20 years as mayor, the General Motors “Poletown” plant, the Renaissance Center, the People Mover, Joe Louis Arena, and several other landmarks were completed. Young was also the driving force behind the construction of the current Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History building and after his death laid in state at the museum. His name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the museum. The Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and the Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport are named in his honor. In 1981, Young was awarded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingarn Medal. Young published his autobiography, “Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Mayor Coleman Young,” in 1994.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 12:35:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015